My first volunteer activity out of my school

Last weekends, I found and had my first volunteer work which did not take place at the school. It was in the largest library in Nanjing - Nanjing Library. Nanjing Library is the third largest library in China. The forerunner of the library was Jiangnan (江南) Library which was established in 1907. It makes a collection of over eight millions of documents. Nanjing Library includes four parts. They are original hall, new hall, historical documents hall and so on. Among these parts, the most famous place is the new hall, and I worked there, too.

I was worked on January 24th and 25th. On every day, I worked from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., but in fact, I just worked for 7.5 hours on each day because I should have lunch.In the morning of the first day, I worked in the Chinese newspaper reading room (中文报纸阅览室; own translation). The main work in this room was to arrange newspapers of that day and cabinets where to put newspapers and to keep a watchful eye on people who entered the room. They required few skills. In the afternoon, I was taken to the room on the under base second floor where to store overdue newspapers in the past and helped managers sort newspapers.
On the second day, I worked in the Chinese books lending-reading room (中文图书借阅室；own translation). In these hours, I just sat on the chair next to the entrance of the room, and watched people and helped them come in or made them take notice of their things – they should not bring bags, water or drinks.
For myself, I do not like this volunteer work very much. Firstly, it was boring. When I called Nanjing Library, I imagined some high work, for example, classifying some documents and books. Of course, the volunteer work is a steady and insipid job, but I could not endure to sit on a chair for not a few hours. Secondly, this activity just required little concentration and common physical strength. I want to call it a kind of simple labor. Thirdly, I could not study anything from this experience. My first aim was to go through this work – classifying documents, or arranging books in Nanjing Library - to study the effective way and the importance of arrangement and the system of a large-scale group. However, these kinds of work could not afford me satisfaction. There is almost no connection between my volunteer experiences in Nanjing Library and employability / life skills.
During this activity, the benefit to me and the result which I got were very little. I learned almost nothing and I do not have any feeling that I did some worthwhile things. Then, I also think the benefit to Nanjing Library was not much, too – one person who moved the newspaper and sat on the chair was slight. I just hope I can have more meaningful and useful experience, not like this one.

A dinner with classmates and mentors in a foreign restaurnant

I went to a Mexican Restaurant called Tacos. Originally, we planned to go to another Mexican Restaurant called Salsa, but it was closed when we arrived there, so we chose another Mexican one. On the 21st in December, my 8 classmates, 3 Grade 12 Mentor and I went to the restaurant for a dinner after school.

These pictures are the photos of interior of Tacos and my friends (Sadly, Grade 12 Mentors are not on the photos) which I took. The boy on the third picture between two paragraphs is me. As you see, the environment was clear but little dark. For myself, I did not like this kind of dark environment though it can give people warm feeling. The waiters and waitresses were kind, but their service quality was average.

The food on the first photo beside is the Mexican beef stake which I ate. It tasted a little spicy.Differently from the common beef stake, it does not have differences of rates of being done, and some noodles under the beef. I have been to Tacos to have meals some times before, and have eaten some kinds of food, but I think this one was the best one which I ate there. The second food is the most famous food of Tacos-Tacos. The tacos is a kind of food using tortilla, a kind of Mexican thin, round bread made of corn, to bundle the sliced meat, chicken or beef. My one was made of beef. It is good food, too, but not as delicious as the stake.





The food on these photos is some of what other people ate. All of it looks clean and delicious, and in fact, so are they. If someone asks me which Mexican restaurant is good, I will give him or her an answer-Tacos is a great one.